Rathambore National Park is one
of India's largest and most renowned nature reserves. It is famous for
its population of comparatively approachable tigers compared to other
parks. Just the two of us were assigned to the same naturalist for all
of the game drives. The park assigned one of five zones each time we
went out. The seven game drives were 6am-9:30am and 3pm to 6:30pm each
day. The naturalist were intent on locating game for us to view, especially
tigers. They always knew where the previous sightings were and used
a lot of instinct to find them. Out of the seven game drives we sighted
tigers on six.We did a lot of of 4 wheeling, rock crawling, off the
rode driving. Although it is a reserve the animals are free to wander
wherever they want. A portion of it is fenced with stone walls to keep
the local cattle from wandering in there. In 1973, part of this sanctuary
came under the Project Tiger Scheme, initiated by the Govt. of India
and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). It was one of the first nine Tiger
reserve areas taken up in the country under Project Tiger. At that time
there were 16 villages inside the sanctuary but between 1976 and 1979,
12 of these villages were shifted outside the sanctuary. Ruins are all
around from the villages that used to be located there and the local
pilgrims walk in barefooted on various holidays to leave food for the
animals and worship. There were actually two tiger sightings right where
the Pilgrims had been.